Tag: Culture Wars

Civilization vs. Barbarians

Absentee Parents

Advice, Music

Many years ago, my boss came into my office and said:

“Ever hear of a band called Whitesnake?”
“Sure;  plays hard rock, the lead singer is ex-Deep Purple’s David Coverdale, and so on.  Why?”
“My daughter won two tickets to a Whitesnake concert in some competition, but I can’t face going with her because it’ll be too loud.  Would you mind taking her?”
“Nope.  Gimme the tickets.”

So I took his 14-year-old daughter to the concert, which was okay as concerts go, and then discovered that — surprise, surprise! — the tickets included backstage passes and a chance to meet the band.  (I guess she’d forgotten to tell her dad about that little bonus.)

Anyway, all went well:  Coverdale and I chatted awhile about Deep Purple and such, she got all the autographs, and that was that.

I was reminded of that occasion when I was reading a series of articles about how David Bowie is supposed to have bonked a couple of underage groupies (among many others) back in his early years, and more recently too.

 

…and in similar vein, how Led Zeppelin did same with some “baby groupies”, also back in the 1970s.

 

No shit.

Listen to me tell it:  I played in a (vastly-less successful) rock band back in the 1970s, and even though we were never groupie-bait to the extent that the big guys were, there were plenty of opportunities to get up to (or more correctly, into ) mischief.

Which leads to my my main question:

WHERE WERE THESE GIRLS’ PARENTS?

How could they be so ignorant as to think that unaccompanied young girls were not going to get into trouble in the heady, loud and licentious atmosphere that was a rock concert?  How could they allow their adolescent daughters to go by themselves or (worse still) only accompanied by their giggly friends?  (For those still unclear on this aspect of parenting, let me explain:  without the presence of parents, one kid can get up to mischief;  two kids can get up to mischief-squared;  and multiple kids will — not can —  get into Hiroshima-scale trouble.)  As Jimmy Page memorably said: “Everyone knows what they come for.”   Groupies gonna groupie, as the modern idiom goes.

I’m not excusing the musicians for doing this stuff, but remember, most of these bands were (and still are) themselves only a few years older than the baby-groupies.  Asking young musicians to behave with decorum in such circumstances is an exercise doomed to failure — as is expecting young girls to behave with restraint when coming face-to-face with their sweaty heroes in the excitement after the concert.

Let me get even more explicit.  When a fresh-faced young girl presents herself to a whacked-out musician, don’t expect him to ask her for ID before he fucks her.  And he is going to fuck her.

It’s just stupid for people to clutch their pearls and accuse these now-septuagenarians of statutory rape committed half a century ago.  Leave them alone.

Young people are going to fuck up.  What’s needed is responsible adult supervision — just as I provided to my boss’s daughter on that occasion.  So if any of you are faced with a similar situation, either with yer kids or yer grandkids, act accordingly.  Somebody has to be the grownup, and it might as well be you.

Aw, Diddums

Freaks & Loonies

OMG it must be so difficult to be a vegan these days…

British vegans claim they have been mocked, derided and snubbed by waiters because of their lifestyle choices.
MailOnline spoke to three women about their experiences of adopting a plant-based lifestyle and all three said they had encountered problems when dining out – from milk in their coffee to salad containing eggs.
It comes after a study found that well over half of vegans (61 per cent) have faced difficulties and been ‘snubbed’ by waiters when eating out at restaurants because of their choice of diet.
A further 41 per cent claimed that waiters have accidentally served them food excluded from their diet, with a third (35 per cent) said they struggle to find the right foods when eating out.

Listen to this tale of horror:

‘On another occasion when ordering a vegan salad from the menu – I was brought the wrong food – a salad with anchovies and egg on it. When I pointed out that this isn’t my order, in response I got: “No, this is vegetarian, just what you asked for!” I then embarked on a long conversation explaining the difference.’

I can just imagine the tone of the “long conversation”.  And by the way, a “study” of a sample of a splinter section of society isn’t going to yield credible data, so take your 41% and 61% and eat it — provided the numbers are plant-based, of course.

Let’s see if I’ve got this right:  you assume behavior that sets you apart from the mainstream of society, then try to make everyone change to fit your freakish choice.  Ergo:

Oy.  Nothing like an evangelist, eh?

Veganism is not a lifestyle choice, it’s a religion.  And I’m an atheist.  The same, by the way, goes for bullshit eating restrictions like halaal and kosher.

All this talk of food has done the usual to me.  Time for brekkie.

And I apologize for the “vegetable” part of the meal, but it was  cooked in beef fat.

Mary Poppins, Racist

Modernism

Unlike many people, I have no problem when some “woke” professor from Karl Marx U. decides that a beloved fictional character is in fact a closet racist for not wiping soot from her face.

Yeah, I know it’s ridiculous.  And the more that these tools sink into ridiculousness, the sooner the ensuing ridicule is going to sink the Good Ship Wokeness beneath waves of scornful laughter.

What amazes me is that The Onion and Babylon Bee are still in business, what with all these prickly hypersensitive fools defying satire on a daily basis.

As for Mary Poppins (the original movie), the greatest crime remains not Mary’s sooty face, but Dick Van Dyke’s attempted Cockney accent.  Can’t forgive that one.

Western Civilization

Africa, Culture, Ethics, Gummint, Politics

Here’s a map which ranks the various countries of the world from light to dark, from least corrupt to, well, Somalia.

Pop quiz:   Of the lighter-colored (i.e. least corrupt) countries, find the common thread.  (Hint:  it’s in the title of this post.)

For those who are surprised at the relatively-low ranking of the United States among the civilized nations, I would suggest that we would rocket upwards with the conviction of Bill and Hillary Clinton, the dissolution of the Clinton Foundation and the imprisonment of all its officers.  To reach the top of the charts, we’d have to convict all members of Congress (active and/or retired) who became millionaires whilst earning only a Congressional salary.

And by “conviction”, of course, I mean this:

Threatening

Modernism, Politics

Although I seldom go out of doors without a hat of some kind, I don’t wear baseball caps because a.) I’m not a baseball player, b.) they’re uncomfortable in hot weather (synthetic material makes me perspire), c.) I’m not eight years old and d.) I’m not a farmer.

However, if it turns out that wearing one of these foul things “triggers” the political sect whom I hate and despise, I might break with a lifelong tradition.

I’ve always been just ornery enough that when someone tells me not to do something, and that thing seems quite innocuous, then I’m driven to do it.   And if the forbidder is a total whackjob, the urge simply intensifies.

I just wish “MAGA” was printed on a fedora or decent straw Panama hat… if anyone knows of such a thing, I’ll wear it.

And as for someone threatening me with violence for wearing the blessed thing… it is, as the kids say, to LOL.

The King Is Dead

Business, Men & Women, Modernism

One wonders what King Gillette would think of his company’s current manifestation of anti-masculinity:

A new short film released by the shaving brand dedicates itself to tackling toxic masculinity in a video that relies more on berating men for not living up to the standards of feminists than selling razors.

Knowing but a little of what King Gillette was like, and knowing how many years of toil and financial hardship he endured to get his disposable razor blade to the market, I think he’d probably burn the whole fucking thing to the ground, and I’d be handing him the cans of gasoline.

In the grand scheme of things, I’d be one of the men refusing to buy Gillette products in protest at their foolishness.  But the truth of the matter is that I haven’t used a Gillette product in well over a quarter of a century, simply because I refuse to spend about $5 for a blade which lasts me less than a week*.  (Good old safety singles or bargain-priced Trac II blades for me;  and if I run out, I use a straight, or “cutthroat” razor without a qualm.)

As for Gillette’s parent company, Proctor & Gamble:  I have suffered untold toiletry privations at their hands, the miserable Cincinnati MFCS bastards:  brand “extensions” which end up replacing much-loved products, only to see said extensions later withdrawn, meaning that I have to find replacements for products I’ve used sometimes for decades.  Try to find, in supermarkets or drugstores anywhere, Old Spice Original Fresh Stick deodorant with the the light blue label — not the anti-perspirant variant, which smells like cat piss.  I’ve been using Old Spice Fresh sticks for well over fifty years, and now I’m forced to buy them online in packs of 24 because they are nowhere to be found otherwise.  And if that supply dries up, I’ll stop using deodorant altogether, because every other male deodorant on the market nowadays smells like an attractant for homosexual prostitutes during Fleet Week.)

To use Gillette’s line on P&G:  50 years of unswerving loyalty is “the best a man can get”, you incompetent fuckers.  Too bad it means nothing to you.

A pox on all of them.  I can’t wait for “woke” to become “choke”, and may they burn in the fires of toiletry hell.

*En passant:  I once tried one of those 5-blade things — a disposable — just for the hell of it, and it felt like someone was dragging the hair out of my face with sandpaper.